THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 679 



praised," declare the Laplanders, the Arctic mosquitoes are not 

 so large as those of tropical countries ; if they were, they would 

 devour men and animals. 



Capt. Hall describes the torment which he suffered from these 

 pests of the Arctic regions during a walk in July, in the follow- 

 ing language : 



"The sun was about five degrees high. Not a breath of air 

 stirring, the sun shining hot, and the mosquitoes desperately 

 intent on getting all the blood of the only white man of the 

 country. I kept up a constant buttling with my seal-skin mit- 

 tens directly beiore my face, now and then letting them slap first 

 on one and then on the other of my hands, which operations 

 crushed many a foe. It seemed to me at times as if I never 

 would get back. Minutes were like hours, and the distance of 

 about two miles seemed more like half a score. At length I got 

 back to my home, both temperature and temper high. I made 

 quick work in throwing open the canvas roof of our stores, and, 

 getting to our medicine-chest, snatched a half-pint bottle of 

 mosquito-proof oil, and with a little of this besmeared every ex- 

 posable part of my person. How glorious and sudden was the 

 change. A thousand devils, each armed with lancet and blood- 

 pump, courageously battling my very face, departed at once in 

 supreme disgust at the confounded stink the coal-oil had diffused 

 about me." 



RATS BY THOUSANDS. 



IT is well-known with what generous favor rats estimate ship- 

 board, which they will only desert when the vessel is sinking. It 

 might be supposed that climate would affect them unfavorably, 

 particularly a frigid temperature, but the supposition is ill- 

 founded. They will not only accompany a vessel to the Arctic 

 regions, but their rapid reproduction is not affected by rigorous 

 experience. Kane speaks of the rats which clung to his ship until 

 their numbers were really prodigious. They attacked everything 

 placed below decks, furs, woollens, shoes, specimens of natural 

 history, and everything else. He writes, We have moved ev- 

 erything movable out upon the ice, and, besides our dividing 



